'In last three years, interest in equestrian sports has grown 10 times': Asian Games gold medallist Divyakriti Singh Rathore

Anyone who has followed and tracked Indian non-cricket sports very closely for a while will know just how difficult it used to be for budding athletes to get the right kind of support and guidance, along with financial and infrastructural help. Over the decades though a lot has changed. Entire sporting landscapes in the country in fact have seen massive positive changes. This is of course not true for each and every sport that is played, but multiple Olympic sports are now seen as more and more accessible. And equestrian sports disciplines fall in that category.

On the face of it, equestrian sports might still carry the tag of being “niche” and “very, very expensive” – and there’s no denying that fact. Just ask Asian Games gold medallist Divyakriti Singh Rathore, who minces no words in admitting that equestrian sports are both niche and expensive. But in the same breath, she makes it very clear that from the time she left India to be based in Europe, some five-six years ago, to now, things in India have undergone a sea-change. There are more riding schools that are coming up, more and more parents are putting their kids into the sport and overall interest is growing rapidly. What we need more of is of course better infrastructure, better quarantine facilities for the horses, a proper system that maps out progress and growth for riders – like it’s done in multiple foreign countries where equestrian sports are very much part of their DNA.

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But There’s no doubt whatsoever that things are moving in the right direction. Last year the Equine Disease-Free Compartment (EDFC) at Remount Veterinary Centre (RVC), Meerut was recognised by the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH). This, according to a press release by the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, allows “Indian horses to compete internationally without lengthy quarantine, ensuring they perform at their peak” and puts India “among a select group of nations with world-class biosecurity standards, boosting its global standing in equestrian movements and reflecting advances in animal care, veterinary science, and sports.”

It is a matter of extreme pride that after several decades, our Equestrian Dressage Team has won Gold in Asian Games!

Hriday Chheda, Anush Agarwalla, Sudipti Hajela and Divyakriit Singh have displayed unparalleled skill, teamwork and brought honour to our nation on the… pic.twitter.com/9GtxWKcPHl

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 26, 2023

In part two ( Read part one here) of an exclusive interview with Firstpost, Divyakriti, who was part of the Indian quartet that won a historic Team Dressage gold medal at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou and was the first Indian female equestrian athlete to be given the Arjuna award, talks extensively about support from the authorities and how it’s increasing and getting better, her own experiences so far, how most top Indian riders are based in Europe and how there can be a time when Indian riders don’t need to change home bases at all in order to compete in the big global competitions, how things are getting better for budding equestrian athletes in India, what can be done better and more.

Excerpts…

How much do you think the 2022 Asian Games outing and the overall success that the Indian team tasted there, with the team gold and an individual bronze for Anush Agarwalla, help in rekindling interest amongst fans and sports watchers and followers in India for equestrian sports, because we began this interview talking about how many people might think that it’s a niche sport. A lot of people might not follow it on a regular basis. How much do you think the Asian Games success manage to change that?

I think it provided a huge amount of help to our sport, to us. All of our lives maybe would have looked very different today if we had not won that (team gold medal). The whole country followed that sport, that day, that event. Everybody, or most of the country knows about equestrian sports now. A lot of riders are being supported by government schemes, which was not done before the Asian Games. So, times have changed and we do get help from the government schemes like Top Stag, Target Olympic Podium, Target Asian Games, all these schemes.

When I came to Europe in 2020, my goal was to ride in the Asian Games and then I would go back to India and I don’t know what I would do. But the discussion I had with my family was that I would be in Europe just for the Asian Games. But we did well at the Asian Games and things changed for me and I was able to continue training here and compete and carry on and aim for the next championship or more championships. So, like I said, in the last three years, 100 horses (have) been imported into India. I meet so many people who are now taking up dressage as a sport.

Parents are putting their children in the sport. So, the interest has grown maybe 10x, if not more. And in Delhi, I think there are more, I’m not exactly sure about the number, but there are more than 50 riding schools which have opened, all with professional trainers, horses, some from India, most of the horses (are) imported. In Bangalore and down South, there are so many riding schools that have opened up. When we went to the Asian Games, I think maybe we were five dressage riders who were based abroad. Now, I think there are 20 of us based in Europe, full-time doing this.

This is our life. So, things have definitely changed and it’s only going to get bigger and better from here. More people are going to join, more people are going to take this up and that, that’s what the sport needs. So, that Asian Games (2022) changed a lot, a hundred percent. It did a lot for the sport.

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I’m glad you mentioned the things that are being done to sort of popularize equestrian sports overall across the board in India, because that is one thing I wanted to talk to you about in detail. In the context of the perception that equestrian sports carry the tag of being a niche category of sports, what are some of the things that are changing and those that you would like to see change in Indian equestrian sports, if at all, so that it becomes more popular and sort of reaches more people?

Yeah, there’s no denying that it’s a niche sport and there’s no denying that it’s an expensive sport. I’m not going to say, you know, it can be a mass sport or something like that. It is an expensive sport and there is a niche, but if you compare it to five years ago, when I moved out of India to now, it’s changed completely.

We used to have three competitions a year, the bigger ones. Now there are competitions every month or every few weeks. In Delhi, you could practically compete somewhere every weekend, which is great. That’s how it works in Europe. The level has to go up. The infrastructure needs to be built. There’s a lot that needs to be done, but it is changing. And this is exactly what the sport needs. I think more and more riders are taking up the sport. In Jaipur, which is my city, there are several riding schools which have come up. There is a small riding school next to my, in my village, which started, I think, with five stables. Now it is an almost, like an international standard riding school.

They host competitions every month and from a small farm, they made it into this big thing. So, that just shows that there’s interest even in a city like Jaipur for dressage. So, it’s growing. And what I would like to change, of course, is - we need more investment to make better infrastructure in India. Why do we have to be based in Europe? Ideally, we should all be competing in India. But these are also conversations that the sports ministry has had with athletes and our team members…But yeah, when infrastructure and movement of horses become a bit easier, you’ll see a big change for Indian riders based in India.

Thrilled to share that Divyakriti Singh has reclaimed her No. 1 spot in Asia! 🇮🇳🏇

As per the FEI Dressage Rankings (30 April 2025), she’s ranked No. 1 in Asia & No. 23 in the world—having held the top Asian rank in 2023 too! 👏 #EquestrianIndia #EFI pic.twitter.com/UseV7o3DxC

— Equestrian Federation Of India (@Efi_India) May 2, 2025

Just to understand this a little better, as things stood before this and still stand perhaps for some riders - if an Indian equestrian athlete was to compete at the Asian games or the Olympics for that matter, then they themselves and also their horses, had to be based somewhere outside India, preferably in Europe. Is that how it worked? So basically, you’re not in India at all, because you’re preparing for the tournament?

So, as of today, if you want to compete at the Asian Games or Olympics, yes, you have to get a horse from outside India, mostly Europe. And you yourself have to be based in Europe or America or wherever it is that you’re training. Australia also, some eventers are training in Australia. So, you have to be based outside India.

Some people are combining it with studies. So, they spend some time at the university, some (in) training….A foreign federation might organise your trials for you, but once you’ve qualified, you can try and export your horse through America, which is a long and expensive process. You also want to quarantine, and fly to America, live in America for some time and then fly to the Asians. So, you have lost most of the spring because the horses aren’t doing much training. That’s the idea of getting a horse from India. But you have to go abroad to qualify and to compete. So, at this point, that’s the answer. I hope things change.

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Do you feel sometimes that the system in India is not conducive for a sport where there is a human and an animal element involved. If you look at a sport like polo, for instance, I recently did an interview with a South African polo player who plays in India and he told me how most of the horses for polo in India are being imported from Argentina. Would you say the whole setup in India is challenging for equestrian athletes, not just on one front, but multiple fronts

(In) equestrian, you’re dealing with horses, so it’s challenging, but that’s also the beauty of the sport. The horses, yes, most, or almost all of them are imported from Argentina or England or South America. But breeding is the next thing we need to think about after making the sport more accessible. I think it’s done with polo now, because people bought a horse and they started putting in teams and they started playing, they streamed the sport, they made entry tickets free.

People come every Sunday to watch a polo match in Jaipur or Delhi or Jodhpur. And that’s why it’s becoming more popular. The next step would be to breed polo horses (in India) and make this bigger. But for equestrian, we’re still on step number one, which is to make the sport more accessible, educate people more about it. So, I think the breeding or getting your own horses is step two.

Right now, we can continue getting horses from Europe and importing them and all of that. I think that is totally fine. It doesn’t make any difference. And I don’t see that as a hindrance. But yes, when you’re dealing with horses, because these are all warm blood horses, you need to have better weather in a city like Jaipur. A lot of polo teams are based in Jaipur, but you can manage it, there is a way around it.

You can have stables with better airflow, you can install coolers, fans, things like that. Some people maybe in Dubai and they install air-conditioning. So, there is a way out, but it’s a long process. But we have to start somewhere. So, polo is on it. Polo has imported horses and they are doing it, and also dressage and equestrian – down South there are a couple of stables that have opened. In Delhi, like I mentioned, there are so many stables. So, I don’t think it’s a hindrance – that because there is a horse involved, it’s not conducive. I think India has a conducive environment, it’s just a matter of starting it, or doing it.

You came up the junior ranks winning multiple awards including the IPA Junior National Polo Championship in 2016 and 2017. Tell me a little bit about what the landscape of equestrian sports overall is like according to you currently in India and how much it has changed, through the lens of competition. How robust and competitive for example are both the junior and senior set-ups?

I have been out of India for a considerable period of time now, but from what I know, it can be a lot better. There is a lot of scope for improvement. I understand that a lot of the (Indian) riders are based in Europe now, so there isn’t a lot of competition within the country. But we have so many riders, there is so much talent.

So, I think there needs to be a better system to channel that talent in the right way and organise the competitions. There have also been some hurdles, some issues here and there within the Indian circuit, but hopefully they are finding solutions. The competition scene needs to improve in India. There is so much potential because there are so many riders and so many horses and establishments. There is a good system in place now, you can go up the ranks, like I did. There’s the Delhi horse show, junior Nationals, senior Nationals, a lot of regional equestrian leagues, which is a great thing. When I was competing at the junior level, it wasn’t very difficult to qualify for the junior Nationals, but now the qualification process I think is a little harder. This is all good, but there is still some work to do. So, hopefully we get good management for the sport and it develops into something better.

In Europe they compete every weekend and when we compare ourselves with our European counterparts – I think I started very late. Almost everyone around me they have started very young – when they were 5-6 years old. They are competing and they go up the ranks, not just in terms of age, but also with the horses. So, for u-12 or u-14 – you actually compete on ponies up to European Championship level. And then you go onto (riding) bigger horses and from junior rider you become a senior. So, all these riders they go up the ranks and they are the same riders who go onto win Olympic medals or become world champions. If that system can somehow be brought into the Indian circuit – that is the way forward.